02 March 2012

Last week I ran across a couple of photographs that caught my eye. A little digging led me to discover the photographer's name is Randy Fox. At first I thought that the photos were taken down south because I'm used to seeing this sort of abandonment spread across the southern states. But in reality, Fox is based in western Pennsylvania and the photographs are taken across the Rust Belt.

The Rust Belt is an area in the northeastern US that runs from Michigan, down through Illinois and Indiana, across Ohio and into Pennsylvania. At one time the area was known for its manufacturing but in recent decades has experienced a change in the economy and a population decline that has left the region dotted with abandoned factories that now sit empty and rusting.

Fox, in his own words, "concentrates on the decaying beauty and loneliness of the changing American landscape". He also runs a photography based website called American Elegy that is dedicated to photographers and artists who capture the spirit of the aforementioned abandonment and writes a Rust Belt photography blog for the Huffington Post. His writing about the coal mining towns of central PA has be seriously jonesing for a roadtrip.